Marcus is a great-grandson of Peter Finger, of the 'Southern' Finger family line.
from Bunkiebet50 at ancestry.com
Born in Texas, 21 year-old Marcus
"Cancellor" farmed in Smith County, Texas in 1870. Living with Marcus was his younger
brother, Joseph Cancellor, age 15, and Marcus' older widowed sister Rhoda Benson, and her four
children. Their farm was valued at $300, with $260 of personal property. Next door lived his brother Robert Cancellor. M.B. is 33, his
wife Becca 28, daughter Sallie age 8. Marcus Cansler lived near his older brother
George Cansler and next to his younger brother Joseph Cansler. He is listed as an
invalid.
Fifty-one year-old Marcus D. Cansler was living in Wise County, Texas in 1900 with his wife Rebecca, age 51.
Sixty-one year-old Marcus P. Cansler was living in Wise County, Texas in 1910 with his wife Rebecca, 61, his
daughter Sallie F., age 39, her husband Thomas B. Peck, and their son, Marcus' grandson,
Homer M., age 13.
Born in Rusk County, Texas in April 1849, Marcus D. Cansler was the first Cansler born in the Lone Star state. He
was seven years old when his mother, Sarah Smith Cansler, died, and eleven, when his father,
Daniel Cansler, died. Until the age of 20, Marcus was raised in Smith County, Texas by his widowed
sister Rhoda Cansler Benson. "M.D." Cansler went to Wood County, Texas, where, in November 1870, he
marrried Rebecca E.
Crone. Living in Wood and then Hill County, Texas, "the young couple began life as farmers in a
most simple and economic way." By 1875, they were farming in Wise County, Texas, about 30 miles north of Fort
Worth, Texas. After ten years of farming, M.D. opened a dry goods and grocery store on the north side of the town
square, in dusty little Paridise, Texas. The town earned it's name from the beautiful flowers which were
growing wild, at the time of it's establishment around 1875. By the 1880s, the little community had a hotel,
two cotton gins, two saloons, a Methodist church and a newspaper, The Wise County Messenger. Mail arrived on the
Gainesville to Weatherford stagecoach. Cotton was carried in baskets to Dan Sheen's cotton gin, where it was
picked up by hand and put into the press. The cotton would run out into the floor, as it awaited its turn to run
through the press, which was powered by a team of oxen. With the coming of the railroad in 1893, a decision was
made to physically move the small town next to the rail line. "Old" Paradise was relocated to
"New" Paradise, with the Cansler's being among the first to move their store "in tact" to
the new location. By the turn of the century, the Cansler establishment was "the principle general store in
the village." His establishment was next to the People's Bank, an early county bank. Marcus never sold his
original Wise County homestead, and, with profits from the store, he acquired additional pieces of land. By 1906,
he owned 380 acres of land in Wise County.
Born in Cherokee County, Alabama in October 1849, Rebecca Crone came from a large family. She was the daughter of
George Crone and Celia P. Cranford. In 1852, George Crone would move his family west to Pulaski
County, Arkansas, where he unexpectedly died in 1855. Celia moved the family to Texas, where she married a widower,
named Henry Patrick. Celia "was mother and step-mother to 26 children, 13 of whom wore the Confederate gray
and did their part toward establishing the Independence of the Confederate states."
Writing in 1906, Marcus praised the abilities of his wife, "Mrs. Cansler is in everything my partner and to
her industry and business judgement much of the family good fortune is due."